


Christmas Goodies

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Goodies (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-20
Updated: 2006-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:44:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Maestro</p>
    </blockquote>





	Christmas Goodies

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Maestro

 

 

 

 

It was a dark and stormy Easter Tuesday. The animal cages were large and smelly, and occupied all of the old factory complex that wasn't taken up by Graeme's lab. Bill and Tim soon learned to avert their eyes from the terrible sights within, and to keep their hands over their ears, too. If anything could ever erase the horror of seeing a Bengal tiger tenderly singing a baby orang-utan to sleep with Max Bygraves' greatest hits, it would be the sight and sound of a cage of guinea pigs standing on their hind legs and re-enacting last week's episode of Coronation Street, in appallingly high-pitched little voices. But it was the fact that Graeme had once again found a way to get two dogs to sing Anything you can do, I can do better - and piped the sound throughout his research institute - that would haunt them forever.

Huddling close to each other, they followed the signs to PROFESSOR GARDEN'S NERVE CENTRE. Some of the signs very helpfully specified Definitely Not a Mad Professor in parentheses under the main text. One hand-written addition went so far as to reassure the casual viewer that Professor Garden had a note from his mother proving he was sane, and that he was a real professor too.

When they reached the Nerve Centre, the room was full of flashing computer lights and spinning data reels; switches, dials and gauges covered the far wall. A white-coated and tweed-trousered figure was working at the bank of machinery.

"Graeme Garden," Tim proclaimed sternly, and the figure gave a wild start, and turned hurriedly around.

"Ah, there you are. Splendid!," Graeme said, rubbing his hands in a mad-scientific glee that Tim found all too worryingly familiar. Behind the thick, square frames of his glasses, his eyes glowed with unholy enthusiasm, and even his sideburns seemed to be more electrified than usual. "I've been waiting for the new test subjects to arrive. Lab assistants, I mean lab assistants, I've been waiting for absolutely ages for lab assistants, how enormously splendid to see you. Come in, come in."

Tim and Bill edged just a little closer, with due caution.

"Now Graeme," started Bill, rushing to deploy his voice of working-class common sense, before Tim could start on his inevitably poncy and pointless attempt at a voice of reason. "It's us, Bill and Tim, your old mates. Now, you know what always happens when you go off on these little enthusiasms, don't you? Call a spade a shovel, you turn into a raving loony and nearly destroy the world. Come back with us now, no one'll get hurt, and we'll just forget all about this little phase, hey?"

"Come back? Come back! I can't leave here now!" cried Graeme. "You don't understand! I'm on the verge of an enormous breakthrough in genetic engineering! I can't go anywhere now. I must stay here and fulfil my scientific destiny! I shall be as a god and mere mortals will bow down before me!"

"Come on Graeme, we've been through all this before. Giant kittens, frankenfido, you've already done it and you know it never ends well now, does it? And besides, think of us, we've been worrying no end. Look at Tim, he misses you."

"No I don't," protested Tim.

"Yes you do," Bill responded, and smacked Tim hard in the back of the head. Tim's face screwed up with tears at the unexpected cruelty, and his mouth worked speechlessly at the injustice of it all.

"See, he's been crying like that for days," continued Bill smoothly to Graeme. "Now stop experimenting on these poor harmless animals, and come back to the office."

"Ah, but that's it you see," said Graeme, slipping into a didactic mode that was somehow no less manic than his earlier gloating. "It's not just animals this time. Let me explain."

He pulled a blackboard down the wall to comfortable teaching height, and pulled a stick of chalk from the pocket of his lab coat. Then he pulled on the chalk and made it extend out into a long pointer; whereupon he flicked a switch and the blackboard briefly flickered blue, and then started displaying filmed images of animals behaving... as nature intended. Comfortable armchairs rose from the lab floor, and Tim and Bill sank gratefully into them, transfixed by the screen.

"Oh that's disgusting, I can't look," said Tim, and covered his eyes. That didn't prevent him from hearing Graeme's narration however. Or from peeking occasionally.

"When a mummy gibbon and a daddy gibbon love each other very much they, oh right, we're up to this bit already," Graeme quickly pointed to the amorphous mass of cells on the screen, dividing over and over again. "The miracle of reproduction! The true miracle occurs on the molecular level, and controls the appearance, talents and interests of the individual. But what if we could intervene in the process after conception? What if we could enable people to grow back a damaged limb, or acquire the ability to compose a symphony? What if we could give women bigger, er, statistics, and make them find scientists more attractive?" Bill made derisive noises as the film dutifully illustrated this possibility by depicting Graeme standing in a park in his lab coat, and being mobbed by six or seven Raquel Welsh look-alikes. It looked like the lab coat was having rather a hard time. "Well, gentlemen, this is no longer a dream. Today, I shall show that genetically manipulating the human body is not only possible, it is the inevitable future of the human race!"

A winged horse galloped towards the camera, and leaped up and out of shot, just before the film flickered out and the blackboard reappeared. It was covered with a large, annotated picture of a double helix, as well as the usual impenetrable equations.

Without pausing to gauge the reaction to his rhetorical flourish, Graeme's tone suddenly dropped back to business-like, and he moved towards Tim and Bill, making shepherding motions with his hands.

"So come along, just stand over here in the corner, it won't take a minute..."

"Wait, wait," said Tim, standing up hurriedly as his chair started to sink back into the floor, but resisting Graeme's pushing and poking. "You can't just transform us into monsters!"

"Oh, no need to worry," replied Graeme, having backed his friends into a corner of the laboratory. He positioned himself suspiciously close to a large lever on the wall. "It's all perfectly scientific and entirely safe. If you'll look up above you, you'll see two buckets." He waved his hands at them. "The one on the right contains DNA that encodes all that's best about the animal kingdom. Strength, speed, animal magnetism! The bucket on the left contains a rather cheeky little cocktail of mutagens and hormones, designed to let the human body take up new DNA and transmogrify to express it."

"So if you'll excuse me, gentlemen..." He reached out for the lever. Unfortunately Bill and Tim chose just that moment to dash forward and try to stop him. The resulting three-way struggle ended (inevitably, really) in the lever being knocked at a time when all three men were within range of the buckets.

They leapt apart as the liquid hit, like fighting puppies separated by a good burst from a hosepipe.

Graeme, who'd got the smallest dose, rubbed the damp spot at the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Oh dear," he said.

"Oh dear? _Oh dear?_ " said Bill. "It's alright for you. Look at me!" He gestured down at his sopping wet t-shirt and pants, and at the puddle forming at his feet. "I'm covered in the stuff! I could turn into a baboon at any moment! And it's freezing in here, already, thank you very much, my chest's horribly cold." He wrapped his arms around his torso and huddled into them, glaring resentfully at Graeme.

Tim sneezed, delicately. Drops of liquid mutagen flew from his extremities and spattered Bill and Graeme. He found a handkerchief and blew his nose firmly.

"If I turn into a baboon with a head cold I shall become very angry and very violent," he told Graeme coldly.

There was an awkward silence. Bill shivered, and Tim tapped his foot impatiently. There was some more silence. They looked at each other. Graeme did the embarrassed neck-rubbing thing again.

"Look, Graeme," said Tim, finally. "How long is it going to take us to turn into baboons anyway?"

"I don't know," said Graeme helpfully.

"What?" shouted Bill.

"Well, how should I know? It's an experiment isn't it, that's the whole point. I mean," Graeme went on, "I mean, there was a lot of different DNA in that vat. If you'd had a properly controlled dose you'd even now be acquiring the strength of a horse, the eyesight of an eagle, the hearing of a dog, the longevity of an elephant, and the staying power of a bunny rabbit. You'd be turning into superheroes! The bionic man would have nothing on you, and it would all be one hundred per cent natural and harmless."

Graeme shrugged uneasily at Bill and Tim's incredulous expressions.

"Assuming the side effects from the mutagens and hormones didn't turn out to be too much of a problem," he added comfortingly.

"Graeme," said Bill slowly, continuing to stare incredulously at him. "Those side effects - they wouldn't include growing new limbs, would they?"

"Oh I shouldn't think so, why ever do you ask?" asked Graeme. He reached around to scratch his neck again, and gave an enormous start.

"Oh my God!" he cried, patting at the lumpy protuberances emerging from between his shoulders. "What have I done? What have I become? What are they?" He patted at them frantically, and spun around in circles trying to peer far enough over his own shoulder to see them properly.

"They're wings, Graeme," cried Bill, straightening up and looking enormously cheered by his friend's misfortune. "They're little baby wings!" He pointed at them gleefully. "You're turning into a fairy! Now that's what I call a side-effect!"

But Graeme was staring incredulously back at Bill.

"Er, Bill - " he started, and then ran out of words.

"What?" asked Bill, alarmed.

"Well, Bill," said Tim, helpfully, "Graeme might be turning into a fairy, but _you_ seem to have turned into a woman." He pointed at the swollen area of Bill's chest. "And that wet t-shirt leaves _nothing_ to the imagination, you little hussy."

"Aaargh!" exclaimed Bill in distress, clutching at the items in question through the damp fabric. And then, an instant later, he added, "oh," and kneaded a little more. "Hmmm," he opined, and looked almost pleased for a moment. Until the obvious corollary struck him.

"It's gone!" he wailed, clutching at his trousers. "Gone!"

Tim found it hard to look away from the sight. Graeme appeared to find it equally compelling.

"I wonder what's, um, replaced it?" wondered Graeme, in tones that certainly retained some measure of scientific detachment, drifting forward slightly as if to investigate personally.

"Perhaps you should have a look, Bill" suggested Tim, still staring. But a little noise from Graeme made him wrench his head around.

"You know, Graeme," said Tim hesitantly, "it's getting rather hot in here suddenly. If you flapped those wings of yours you might cool us down a little. They're such lovely wings, after all."

Graeme obligingly screwed up his face in concentration and then flapped his new wings a little. Bill and Tim drew in towards the cool air. They found it rather hard to stop.

"Ah, Graeme, didn't you say something about magnetism?" Tim asked, just a little desperation crowding out the tone of polite enquiry. He continued to take tiny, almost unwilling, steps that brought him closer to Bill and Graeme.

"Ah yes," said Graeme, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, and inching forward in his turn. " _Animal_ magnetism in fact."

Bill licked his lips and moved in a little closer himself. "So that's like normal magnetism, except it happens to animals?" he asked cautiously.

Graeme loosened his tie slightly and kept edging towards the others. "It's like normal magnetism, except that it's actually a euphemism for - my goodness you both smell good!" he cried, and lunged for them. Bill and Tim met him halfway.

The lab coat had rather a hard time of it, just like in the film.

**One month later**

The animal magnetism started to wear off after a few weeks. It became possible once again to walk down the road to the chemist without attracting a crowd of desperately lust-crazed housewives (or in Bill's case, a determined following of postmen, parking inspectors, and council workers). This was agreed to be fundamentally a good thing, as it made it much quicker to nip out and get the milk; also, Graeme had run out of lab coats to have torn off him.

Life got simpler in other ways. It got easier to cross the office to answer the phone without stopping to have an orgy on the way. On the twenty-eighth evening after the incident with the mutagens, Graeme yawned and adjusted his clothing, and staggered over to add a final data point to the tally he'd been keeping on a flip chart sitting on an easel by the window.

"Only twice today so far," he said. "The effect is definitely wearing off." He staggered over to the ornate chair behind the desk, and collapsed into it, fanning himself with his wings, which had grown to a very impressive span. They had turned out to be very functional for flying too, although Graeme had discovered that the constant attentions from sex-crazed pigeons had made travelling by air more tiresome than he had expected.

Bill was still draped over the chaise longue they had installed under the window. He yawned and stretched luxuriously, and ran his fingers through his beard. "Just as well," he opined, "I'm tired of being treated as a sex object, just because I'm a woman."

"I'm not treating you as a sex object just because you're a woman," replied Graeme, who believed that he had much broader and deeper reasons for treating Bill as a sex object. "And anyway, I treat Tim just the same."

"Ah, you might think you do, but that's the great patriarchal fallacy, isn't it? You might find us equally attractive, but Tim, now, as a man you allow him a rich and well-rounded identity, don't you? While as a woman I am defined by sex."

"You saucy little minx!" said Graeme, sitting up straight in appreciation of this line of thought. "If you wanted to try for three times today, you just had to say so, you know."

"I am in control of my own sexuality! I am not defined by my sex!" protested Bill, waving his copy of The Female Eunuch wildly in the air. "Biology is not destiny!"

"I should think not," said Tim, emerging from the lavatory. He squinted a little. "But is that eyeliner you've got on, there, Bill?"

"Possibly, possibly," admitted Bill. "But the point is I wear it because I choose to, not because biological imperative made me."

"Speaking of biological imperative," said Tim, adopting a familiarly rhetorical stance by the table, and a familiarly pompous tone to match. "Bill, Graeme, I have some very important news to tell you." After making certain he had their attention, he continued.. "I've just looked at the test results, and - well - let's just say, soon we'll all be hearing the patter of little feet." He paused, and looked around to gauge the effect of this pronouncement.

"No!" cried Bill, leaping to his feet, and looking around for the singing dogs. "Graeme! You haven't been doing _more_ of those unnatural breeding experiments have you?"

"No, no, of course not," Graeme assured him hastily; but Bill recognised the evasive expression all too well.

"So exactly what experiments have you been doing, then?" Bill asked.

Graeme looked uncomfortable.

"Well," he said. "None, really. As such. No new ones, anyway."

"Graeme," said Bill warningly.

"Well there might have been," said Graeme, "just the teensiest, tiniest littlest long-term side-effect of those hormones a month ago. That's getting bigger day by day. A little parcel of joy that should be delivered just in time for Christmas, shall we say."

"Oh no, no," said Bill. "It's a baby, isn't it? We're going to have a baby, aren't we?"

"Yes," chorused Graeme and Tim. "We're going to have a baby."

"You think that just because I'm a woman, I'm good for nothing but sex and childbearing! Barefoot and pregnant, that's how you want me! Well, I'll show you! It's my body and it's my choice. Graeme, you need to give me an abortion right now, before it gets any bigger."

"But - " protested Graeme.

" Come on, then," Bill said, leaping up from the chaise longue, and laying himself down on the tabletop in front of Graeme. "Go get your coat hanger. Chop chop, so to speak."

"But Bill," said Tim, staring at him in consternation. "It's _not_ your body."

"That's enough of your chauvinism, _Mister_ Brooke-Taylor," said Bill. "It is my body, my child, and my say. Get on with it."

"Actually, Bill," said Graeme, "I'm not sure that it is your child. All our DNA is so scrambled now that when I looked at Tim's results, it was impossible to tell who the other parent was. Though I rather think it might be me."

Bill sat up suddenly. "Tim? _Tim_ is having a baby?"

Graeme nodded furiously, and Tim smiled with nervous pride and said, "yes."

"He can't do that! He's a man!"

"I didn't expect sexual discrimination from you of all people, Bill," said Tim huffily. "It seems to be a side-effect of the same process that turned you into a woman. And you should be congratulating me! I'm going to be a mother - er, father, er - . Well, I'm going to be a parent."

Bill looked at him solemnly.

"Tim, I want you to know that, as a woman, I support your right to an abortion."

"Oh, how awful, I could never do such a thing." said Tim, scandalised. "Of course, I shall give it up for adoption immediately it is born," he added, bravely keeping his upper lip stiff.

"What? No!" cried Graeme. "Tim, how could you do such a thing to your own research subject? I mean, child?

"But raising a child properly costs money!" protested Tim. "And we haven't got any! You spent it all on your stupid research to genetically engineer superheroes."

"Then we'll just have to do everything ourselves, won't we?" replied Graeme. "After all, I'm a genius, I should be able to teach the little one anything he needs to know."

"I could be a stay-at-home mum," said Bill, running his hand down his curvy new hips, perfectly shaped for carrying an infant. He ran his hands over his head. "We could do each other's hair when she's older. Ooh, mine's such a mess at the moment, I just washed it and can't do a thing with it," he trilled.

Tim's eyes took on a faraway look; his back straightened, and his hand reached automatically for the gramophone needle. "Yes," he said, his voice rising majestically above the strains of _Land of Hope and Glory_ , "yes, a baby needs love and education, and our child yet unborn shall have these in full measure. And yet, this is not all; if it is to grow up to serve Britain, a child needs more than this. A child needs... things! Things that we ourselves do not possess." He took the needle off the record, and reverted to his ordinary voice. "So we'd better go nick them from other people then, come along."

So Tim clung to Graeme's back and they flew around London, stealing prams and nappies, toys and baby clothes wherever they could find them. It took rather a long time. They got tangled in the web of clotheslines around some council flats, and nearly found themselves cocooned for later consumption. Then they were nearly shot down over Kensington, where they found they had to do battle with a crack division of well-trained, smartly uniformed nannies. Meanwhile, Bill took the opportunity to put curlers in and a frilly apron on, and had some misadventures with a big pot of paste while putting up educational alphabet cut-outs around the office. He hummed that song about being needed all the while. It always seemed appropriate somehow, for times like this. And by the time he'd finished the song, the letters on the walls spelled out hardly any rude words anymore, and Graeme and Tim had come home for tea.

"Shall I be mother?" Bill asked, adjusting the sit of the apron.

"I think not," said Tim haughtily, and took control of the teapot.

**Eight months later....**

"Graeme", said Tim, severely, drawing himself up to his full height and resting his hand protectively on his enormously swollen belly as he lectured. His waistcoat hung open, having failed to stretch sufficiently to stay closed, but otherwise he was as neat and precise as ever.

"How will my unborn super-child ever truly understand the joy of Christmas, if you won't come to the birth as the Christmas angel? After all," and here the certainty of righteousness in Tim's tone lessened, just a little, and was replaced by a rather unconvincing attempt at wheedling. He brushed one lock of blond hair back behind his ear, and shrugged self-effacingly. "After all, you _might well_ be the father, and what father wouldn't do such a tiny teensy weensy little thing that's not hard at all for his only darling daughter whose going to love him and hug him and grow up to support him in his old age and anyway will probably have _superpowers_ that can blast him from the face of this earth?"

The door to the office burst open.

"Me!" cried Bill cheerfully, as he bounced in, certain highly prominent and poorly restrained parts of his anatomy bouncing rather more than had once been the case. He took off his overcoat, and dusted the snowflakes from it. "Load of consumerist cobblers, this Christmas stuff. Tell you what, though," he added, holding out the neckline of his I'm a Goodie t-shirt, and peering downwards, "I reckon these might be quite useful once the little bugger wants a feed." He gestured disparagingly over at Tim. "You might have lost your slim girlish hips, but I don't see any progress in the chestal region. You should be worrying about filling a bra for the little brat, not a Christmas stocking."

"Well, I can't say I've noticed you using your quote chestal region unquote to fill a bra, Bill," huffed Tim. "An affront to public decency, that's what you are. And don't call your only son a brat. Oh dear," he staggered a little, brought his knees together, and grabbed the edge of the table for support. "I think I might be going into labour! Help! It's starting! I'm going to have a baby! I'm a teapot!"

"Calm down, Tim," said Graeme in his most commanding voice. "There's no need for panic. It's an established medical fact that your first labour's likely to last for, ooh, a very long time. We've got hours yet to work it out. Days, even."

Tim slumped down onto his chaise longue, clutching smelling salts in one hand, and nervously plumping the union jack cushions with the other. "Work what out?"

"Why, how to get the baby out, of course," Graeme said, a little distractedly. He was struggling to get his white coat on over the wings, and getting increasingly caught up in it as it seemed to take on a life of its own. After it managed to savage him in the face he finally pulled it off and tossed it into a corner. He quickly pulled a stethoscope out of his pocket and put it on instead, attempting to suggest by his manner that this had always been his intention.

"Now," he said, I've had a number of months to prepare, and I think I've got all the necessary equipment assembled."

Graeme walked over to the Christmas tree that sat beside the desk, and pulled the implements out from beneath it, one by one.

"Forceps," he said, holding up the biggest pair Tim had ever seen. They looked suspiciously like they might have been designed for elephants. Or at least horses.

"Rubber gloves." He held out two big pink washing up gloves.

"Wellies," he added, stepping into them, and, finally, he held up a small pair of very ordinary scissors, the sort usually supplied to children who have run with the sharp ones once too often.

"Surgical scissors, to chop the little monster out of you!" he finished gleefully, miming a cutting action. Tim swooned.

"Graeme!" cried Bill, striding to Tim's side. "Look what you've done now. You've frightened him with your horrid medical instruments of torture. Childbirth should be a natural, beautiful, joyful occasion, and Tim deserves a natural, beautiful joyful birth. All he needs is a woman's touch." Bill tentatively reached out and touched Tim's shoulder in illustration.

Tim moaned in response. "I think they're coming faster now," he said, clutching Bill's arm. "Oh, take me to hospital. I want a doctor. I don't want to die in childbirth and have my child grow up never knowing its - er - the most important of its three fathers."

"I thought as much!" said Graeme triumphantly, striding forward and knocking Bill out of the way. "What we need here is fresh linen and lots of hot water. Go and put the kettle on, woman!"

Tim moaned as Bill muttered resentfully about male chauvinist pigs and went to boil the kettle.

**One hour later**

"Another cup?" asked Graeme, gesturing at the chess board with the teapot. "Oh - there's none left."

"Well it's your turn to boil the water," said Bill, intent on the game.

On the chaise longue on the other side of the office, Tim moaned, as dramatically as he could manage.

**Another hour later**

"Another cup?" asked Graeme, gesturing absent-mindedly with the teapot as he pored over a book.

"Don't mind if I do," said Bill, and pushed his mug across the table.

On the chaise longue, Tim moaned. Graeme turned the page and kept reading.

**Eight hours later**

"Another cup?" asked Graeme, hand automatically reaching out for the teapot.

"Actually, Graeme, I'd quite like a cup of tea," said Tim, from the chaise longue.

"Oh, Tim, yes, there you are." He shook the teapot cautiously. "If you want a cup of tea you'll need to go and put the kettle on, I'm afraid," he said.

Tim moaned.

**One day later**

Tim moaned a different sort of moan. The new noise woke Graeme and Bill, who had curled up together on the chaise longue, snuggled under Graeme's wings.

"Tim?" asked Bill, looking around for him.

"Tim?" called Graeme, growing agitated as he realized Tim was nowhere to be seen.

Another strange, strangled moan came from behind the bathroom door.

"Tim!" Bill called, rushing up to the door and trying the handle. "Are you alright in there?"

The door stayed shut, and nothing emerged but a louder cry suggesting greater distress.

"Tim, Timbo, you have to let us in!" called Graeme. "You're giving birth to the world's first baby scientifically engineered for genetic superiority! You're not qualified to do it alone! You need me there to ensure everything is monitored by medical experts."

The noises that greeted this suggestion seemed hardly human.

"Tim!" cried Bill, "pay no attention to Graybags and his scientific rubbish. You're bringing a precious new life into the world, and you need the support of your friends. Let me in, let me in, and I'll, yes, I'll even hold your hand during the birth."

There was one, last, elephantine groan, and then a moment of silence.

"Tim?" asked Graeme cautiously.

"Tim? Are you alright in there?" tried Bill.

And finally came the noise of the lavatory flushing. The door opened, and Tim walked gingerly out in his shirtsleeves, his union jack waistcoat wrapping the bundle held in his arms.

"My son!" cried Graeme, just as Bill exclaimed, "my daughter!"

"Tim!" they managed together, and started forward.

Tim pulled away from them, protecting the bundle in his arms from their gaze. He cleared his throat.

"That was a very moving, beautiful experience," he said. "Although Graeme, I'd be interested in some extremely scientific painkillers as soon as possible, please. But first, we need to welcome our wonderful child into the world on this Christmas morn. He will bring us peace and joy and all manner of good things."

Beautiful big brown eyes stared curiously up at them from within the nurturing circle of Tim's arms.

The very shiny nose was hard to miss too, as was the fur, the pointy ears, and the little nubs which would one day grow into antlers.

"How... interesting, very interesting," crooned Graeme, reaching out to gently stroke the side of the baby's face.

"Whose diddums daddums darling boy?" asked Bill, scratching gently between the ears.

Tim smiled proudly, right up to the point where the baby wet itself all down the front of his shirt.

Unfortunately, later, while they were using up the last of the animal magnetism to celebrate the birth, the baby reindeer tottered out of its crib and across the office to the window, which it nosed open. It unfurled its hitherto unnoticed wings, and jumped happily out in pursuit of the eight other reindeer (and the sleigh) that had just flown past.

A distant peal of laughter drifted back into the office with the snowflakes and the sound of Christmas bells.

THE END

 


End file.
